The Second National Fertility Survey 1971 (NEGO II)

Abstract

This chapter is devoted to the objectives and methods of the Second National Fertility Survey in Belgium. The project has a double aim: first, to study fertility, fertility regulation, and partner relations on the basis of an integrated, interdisciplinary, and multivariate investigation; and second, to undertake specific intradisciplinary studies on these topics. Its aim was not only to study a number of fundamental problems of theoretical scientific importance but also to take a ‘problem-focused’ approach to marriage counseling and education, contraception in relation to sexual and demographic factors, and responsible parenthood and population control. The 1966 survey had clearly shown that the problems of fertility and fertility regulation in Belgium are no longer primarily quantitative in nature - at least in the sense of insufficiently controlled fertility - but are now mainly biopsychic. They concern on the one hand the distribution and variability of the fertility continuum in the population from a qualitative point of view, and on the other biomedical, socio-psychological, and sexuological relations as well. With respect to the latter it must be kept in mind that modern society has not only changed the factors controlling the mechanisms involved in the procreation and survival of children but has also influenced the social, psychological, and biological mechanisms determining family and sexual relations.